It has taken me since August to work my way through the Taffanel-Gaubert 17 Daily Exercises. Obviously, I didn't do all of them every day, or even one a day. I began with Number 4 and practiced two pages for a week and then moved to the next to pages the following week. The past three weeks, however, I've worked on an entire exercise each week.
So last week, while working on Exercise #3, I contemplated whether I should stick with Taffanel-Gaubert, or should I try something new. This evening I pulled out the Rubank Advanced Method: Flute Vol. 1 that I first used in high school and again while studying with Betty Leeson at Rockford College. I know some teachers and flutists who look down on methods like the Rubank, but many, many of us started with them in public schools and even with private teachers.
I worked through the first 15 exercises in the Rubank (not quite three pages) and noticed something right away. The Rubank method tells you what key you're working in, whereas the Taffanel-Gaubert assumes you know. It also labels the Natural, the Harmonic, and the Melodic minor scales. I'm pretty good at knowing the major scales, primarily because Lise Mann drilled them into us during my year at Moorhead State University. I still struggle a little bit with the written key signatures. The minor keys escape me, because I never studied music theory. So working through the Rubank method while also reading Music Theory for Dummies is helping me to learn the minor scales. Not to mention strengthening my knowledge of the majors.
If it gets me to practice the "icky stuff," as one workshop presenter called it, helps me improve my technique, and helps me learn theory, then it's a method book that works.
No comments:
Post a Comment